College instructors like those at UGA have helped to awaken younger Americans to the need for true equality and change in our nation. It’s been over 150 years since the slaves were freed, and African Americans and people of color are still discriminated against.
The Black Lives Matter movement and the progressives—including many college students like those at UGA—marching with them want us to live up to our vaunted ideals of equal justice for all.
UGA students and others in younger generations have been on the internet for their entire lives. They have the ability to instantly make friends with people from an infinite amount of backgrounds, with different experiences and ideas than their immediate circles. They have had cameras in their pockets for most of their adult lives and can capture every single instance of injustice they find.
Protesting for basic equality should not be a political movement, yet student protesters are constantly faced with ignorance at best and malice at worst. Student protesters aren’t trying to end democracy or Western civilization; quite frankly, they are fighting as hard to protect it as the generations before them.
It’s baffling to assert that the hundreds of thousands of young people peacefully marching in the streets are anti-democracy. UGA students refuse to accept that trying to change the country into a more inclusive and accepting place is equivalent to seeing its end, or else Western civilization would have ended countless times by now.
There is a good reason why people here are outraged. DWB (driving while black) stops happen every day in Georgia; if you don’t believe it, ask someone Black.
Our reactionary governor pushed through legislation to prevent localities—many of which have majority black populations—from moving statues of Confederate leaders (pro-slavery traitors to the U.S.) from public grounds. These grounds are maintained by the tax money coming from people of all races, including Blacks.
The Glynn County police and legal establishment conspire to look the other way when a former DA cop murders an unarmed black jogger. It was only months later, after a cell phone recording was finally made public, that justice was served and the three perpetrators indicted. We could go on, but you get the point.
We are both glad to see UGA students and the younger generation in general standing up for what they believe and pushing for long overdue change. It’s past time for our nation to attempt to finally become the true democracy that most of us envision it being.
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